


winter pays for the summer

by 1000_directions



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Charity Hawktion (Marvel) 2020, Huddling For Warmth, Minor Jack Rollins/Brock Rumlow - Freeform, Multi, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Strike Team Delta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26957578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/pseuds/1000_directions
Summary: Clint and Jack crash land in the middle of the Siberian taiga, and there's only one bed(roll).
Relationships: Clint Barton & Jack Rollins, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Charity Hawktion 2020





	winter pays for the summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kalika_999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).



> this is a hawktion fic for kali! i'm sorry this took so long for me to complete, and i hope you enjoy it! as requested, rollins and rumlow are good guys and are not secretly hydra :)
> 
> this is a sequel, of sorts, to [boys of summer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593220). you don't need to read that to understand this. all you need to know is that clint and natasha have an established relationship, and clint is friends with jack, and they all work together.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Clint says, combing his fingers through his damp hair, frowning at his reflection in the mirror. He doesn’t usually spend too much time looking at himself, but that one piece of hair is sticking up again, and now that he’s noticed it, he can’t _not_ notice it.

“If you’re late and the jet leaves without you, I won’t have to miss you at all,” Natasha reasons with a small smile. She’s been perched on the counter by the sink, quietly watching him pack up his toiletries in preparation for the mission that he is not late for. Yet.

“I’ll run fast,” he promises with a grin.

He steps closer until he’s standing between her parted legs. She wraps her thighs around him reflexively, like she always does when he gets this close, and he lets her pull him in to the warmth of her body. He noses behind her ear and kisses the place where he feels her pulse buzzing beneath his lips, and she sighs softly, running her fingernails lightly over his biceps.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish, мышка,” she murmurs, tugging sharply on the short hairs at the back of his neck the way he likes her to.

“I have every intention of finishing, ко́шечка,” he says, kissing his way to her smart mouth, and she lets him lick past her lips and kiss her deeply for a few seconds before pulling back.

“You don’t have time,” she says firmly, shaking her head and ignoring his whines. “Let me fix your stupid hair before you go.”

He grumbles and climbs onto the counter next to her. She’s right, and he knows she’s right, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Still, he doesn’t think either of them would react well to him losing his job for insubordination, so he sits there obediently, legs swinging, toes just barely brushing the floor. 

“Don’t give me that face,” she says, running her fingers through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.

She scoots over and swings herself into his lap, knees warm and secure around his waist as she kneels over him. He covers each of her small hips with his hands, anchoring her even though she doesn’t need the help. From this angle, he has to look up at her. She’s solid and in control, and he likes that, and she knows it.

“How did you take care of yourself before you knew me?” she mutters under her breath, leaning over at a dangerous angle to pump some kind of product into her hand before carding her fingers through his hair.

“Badly,” he says, letting his eyes fall shut under the soothing touch of her fingertips. “Did a real lousy job of it.”

“You did fine,” she says softly, and he feels the breeze of her breath and then the gentle brush of her lips low on his forehead, almost between his eyebrows. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? You come home to me safe.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, opening his eyes and giving her hip a small squeeze. “I’m going to be so careful. Piece of fucking cake.”

*

“I thought you were supposed to be a good pilot,” Jack says five hours later, staring at the smoldering wreck of what used to be their stealth jet, before it fell out of the sky, hit the ground, and promptly exploded.

“We landed, and we’re not dead,” Clint says distractedly, scanning the wreckage for any sight of his supply pack. “Pretty sure you couldn’t complain this much from beyond the grave.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” Jack says, unnervingly calm as he tightens the straps on his own pack, which he’d managed to salvage before they ejected. “Face it, your kit is gone. We have to move.”

“You could’ve grabbed my bag for me while I was making sure we didn’t get clotheslined by a tree branch,” Clint grumbles, kicking at the snow. He knows he should be grateful they have even one bag of supplies between the two of them, but his tracker was in his bag, and it’s either lost or melted or exploded by now, and Tasha is going to be furious.

“That’s a weird way to say ‘Thank you for saving my life,’” Jack says, squinting up at the sky, and Clint follows his gaze. The sun is already starting to set, and the Siberian winter won’t get any warmer once it does. “We need to find shelter. I might know a place.”

He picks a direction and sets off decisively, and as good as Clint is at tracking and orienteering, he doesn’t have any supplies, and his knowledge of minor landmarks within the goddamn taiga is not the best, so he scrambles after Jack.

“You didn’t save my life,” he says belatedly. He wonders how Jack knows which way to go. All these trees look exactly the same, and there are no stars out to navigate by. But Jack has this eerie knack for just _knowing shit_ that no one can really explain, so Clint reluctantly trusts his judgment.

“I strapped you into a parachute and ejected you from a plummeting plane,” Jack says patiently, hiking his bag up on his shoulders. “Call it whatever you want, but all the same, you’re welcome. Seriously, we should move faster and try to keep quiet unless you want to attract bears.”

“That’s a joke, right?” Clint asks, speeding up to match Jack’s pace. “You’re just fucking with me. Right?” Jack shrugs, and Clint groans. Tasha’s going to be _livid_.

It’s only about twenty minutes of marching at a good clip before they come upon a small cabin, tucked discreetly into a copse of trees. Just in time, too. It’s still early by Clint’s internal clock, but the sun is already starting to disappear behind the horizon, and he knows things can get real dark real quick once you get this far north.

“Here,” Jack says confidently. “This should be fine.”

“How do you know about this place?” Clint asks. There’s nothing to distinguish this part of the forest from any other, as far as he can tell. “How do you know there isn’t already someone inside?”

“I know things,” Jack says in his maddeningly evasive way, and Clint has a feeling he’s not going to get any more information than that. “Come on, let’s get inside. We don’t have time to hide all of our tracks, but hopefully the cover of dark will buy us some time to rest before we have to get moving again.”

The cabin is small and unfurnished, and it’s just as cold inside as it was outside. There’s a decent chance Clint is going to die in the tundra, but he’s hoping pure spite is enough to sustain him; it’s worked well enough in the past.

“So we don’t have the sat phone, because that was in your pack,” Jack says as he unloads his gear. Clint bristles at the reminder that his shit is lost, but there’s nothing they can do about that now. “I have a bit of food and some water,” Jack continues. “And a sleeping roll. Really only designed for one person.”

“Guess I’ll die,” Clint says. Jack looks at him with palpable alarm. “You know, the meme?” He gets a blank look in return. “Do you know what memes are?”

“I know what MREs are,” Jack says, digging a few pouches out of his bag. “You want goulash or vegetable crumbles?”

“Goulash,” Clint says immediately, thinking longingly of his own pouch of barbecue beef. “Vegetable crumbles? What the fuck? What is that?”

“Plant-based meat substitute,” Jack says, tossing a pouch at Clint. “They’re not so bad.”

“Are you just trying to trick me into trading?” Clint asks through narrowed eyes, and Jack smiles blandly without giving anything away. “No. I’m keeping the goulash.”

“Enjoy,” Jack says.

The goulash is fucking disgusting.

*

“So how do you want to do this?” Clint asks looking down at the sole bedroll, which Jack has settled right in front of the cabin door.

“I figured I’d wrap myself up like a pieróg and have a nice snooze while I leave you to wander the woods until you freeze to death,” Jack says mildly. Clint stares at him in disbelief, and Jack snorts. “Obviously we’re going to share it, dummy.”

“Obviously,” Clint grumbles. He’s too fucking cold for Jack’s dry humor right now. “I meant, how did you want to...be positioned.”

Jack quirks an eyebrow, and Clint hopes that maybe a bear will burst through the door and eat him before he has to hear whatever embarrassing innuendo is about to come out of Jack’s mouth.

But then something changes in his face, and the humor transforms into something softer, which is almost more than Clint can stand right now, stranded in the woods, mission gone to shit, and all of it probably his fucking fault.

“Front to back is optimal for heat conservation,” Jack says gently. “You look halfway frozen, and I run hot, so I should probably….” He gestures awkwardly with his arms, wrapping around an invisible partner.

“You gonna cuddle me to sleep?” Clint asks, trying to keep his voice even so he doesn’t let on how grateful he is for the distraction.

“I’ll spoon you,” Jack says with a half-smile. “That’s what it’s called, right?”

“Yup. Just two spoons in a drawer,” Clint says. “If you try to fork me, I’ll knife you.”

Jack rolls his eyes, and Clint grins sweetly at him. Honestly, Clint wouldn’t mind a bit of a snuggle from a friend. He’s a tactile kind of guy, and a little human contact would be soothing after the shitstorm of a day he’s had.

They both kick off their boots and get settled on the floor. Clint’s trying not to be too eager, but he’s fucking _freezing_ , and Jack is so warm. Jack’s arms wrap around him from behind, and Clint tries to decide how weird this is. He’s used to this position; it’s how he and Tasha tend to sleep, him curled up on his side with her protectively draped over him. But she’s so small, and Jack is so...not small.

“This is kinda weird, right,” Jack whispers, and Clint squeaks in surprise at the hot breath on his ear.

“Pretty fuckin’ weird,” Clint replies. “But at least it’s working.” Jack’s bigger than Tasha, obviously, though smaller than Clint. But still, he covers a lot of ground, and Clint is already starting to feel nice and toasty. Maybe he _won’t_ die in this cabin to be reclaimed by the wilderness after all.

“Well, I’m glad it’s working. Would’ve been real hard to explain to Nat if I let you die on mission.”

“Yeah, she’ll kill you if you don’t bring me back alive,” Clint says brightly.

“No worries,” Jack says, starting to sound sleepy. “I’m used to wrangling overconfident, foolhardy idiots and keeping them from getting themselves killed.”

“You mispronounced ‘handsome, brave desperados,’” Clint mumbles. Jack’s arms are so warm and strong around Clint. This feels like a very safe place for him to rest. “Hey, did you just compare me to Rumlow? I think that’s a compliment.”

“It wasn’t,” Jack says, but his voice sounds fond. “You’re both idiots. That’s not a compliment.”

“We’re brilliant, strategic thinkers who get the job done.”

“You’re idiots who get yourself hurt more often than should even be statistically possible, considering the finite number of bones and muscles and ligaments in a human body.”

“I have extra bones,” Clint says sleepily, snuggling deeper into Jack’s body. _So warm_. “Accessory bones. Lots of nice places to break.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jack says, and Clint can hear the smile in his voice. “You’re so dumb. Please shut up and go to sleep. I’m begging you.”

Clint opens his mouth to say something, but Jack tightens his grip, strong arms holding Clint still and safe, and he forgets what he was going to say.

It’s fine. They’ll sleep here tonight, safe and protected, and then in the morning, they’ll find a way to complete the mission, just like they always do. And soon enough, Clint will be back home, and Tasha will be yelling at him for getting injured, and she’ll fuss over him in her brusque, frustrated way. She’ll take care of him, and everything will be just fine.

But for now, Clint sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](https://1000-directions.tumblr.com/post/631716616923643904/title-winter-pays-for-the-summer-link-ao3)
> 
> Natasha calls Clint "little mouse," and he calls her "little cat."


End file.
